“No, actually. Harry died and I found out I have a son.”
Their stunned faces might’ve been comical had the topic not been so damn serious.
“A…a son?” Mom looked to Justin and Brianna as though they could help clear this up, and when they had nothing, she turned to Ryan, who was watching me.
Then, finally, she turned back to me. “What do you mean you have a son?”
“A baby. A boy. A son, Mom. A child I knew nothing about, courtesy of Harry.” My words echoed around the shed as thunder did across a stormy sky, and the damage that was about to follow was something none of us could avoid. “You all know him quite well, actually. Better than I do.”
Ryan cursed, spun on his heel, and walked away, kicking at the tire of one of the tractors.
“We all know— Jake…” Mom brought her hands to her mouth and looked as though she was going to be sick, and boy could I relate to that feeling.
On the plus side, she seemed just as shocked as I’d been. So maybe she really was just oblivious to everything that asshole had done. It made me wonder, though, what other secrets were rattling around in Harry’s closet?
Justin pushed off the table and straightened. “Jake? Laurel’s Jake? He’s your…” He took a good look at my face. “Fucking hell.”
Yeah, that about covered it.
Brianna frowned. “How is that even—”
“Possible?” I said, turning to my sister. “If we have to tell you that, I don’t think that fancy school of yours is doing a good job.”
“I know how, but this is Jake. Him and Laurel are here every day. How could we not know that?”
How indeed? But when we all looked to Mom, she shook her head.
“This can’t be real.”
“Oh, it’s real,” I said. “I’ve just spent the morning talking to Laurel. Talking to Jake. Think about it, Mom, think. The morning after graduation, Harry sent me away. He didn’t want me anywhere near Laurel. How do you think he would’ve responded when she showed up months later telling him she was pregnant?”
“No. He would’ve told me.”
“About a grandson he didn’t want in his life and knew you’d never turn away? Sorry, but Harry’s pulled too much shit too many times. There’s no way what Laurel told me is anything but the truth. And you know what makes it worse?”
The sallow coloring of my mom’s face told me that she didn’t think it could get much worse.
“He bought her silence with blackmail against her dying mother. What a guy, right?”
My stomach twisted around on itself as everyone stood there in stunned disbelief. What I’d just told them was shocking. It was horrifying. And now, it was finally out in the open.
They would have to work out how they wanted to deal with all of that, though, because right now I wanted to be as far away from here as possible—and I wanted to get back to Jake and see if there was any chance that he was interested in getting to know me.
“I’m taking the rest of the day off. Maybe the rest of the week, I don’t know. Laurel won’t be here either, so don’t expect to see her until she’s ready to come back—if she ever is.”
I walked toward the door, but just before I left, I said, “I hope to God that one day I’ll understand why Harry was such a miserable son of a bitch. But until then, I’m going to take immense pleasure in believing that he’s rotting away somewhere in hell watching his grand plan fail.”
36
Noah
I STARED AT the back door of Wilhelmina’s and took a minute to just close my eyes and fucking breathe. This morning had been…a lot.
A lot of information.
A lot of emotions.
And a lot of feelings to process.
I had a son. A son. And that was…
It was amazing.
Scary as hell, but amazing all the same, and I needed to fall into that feeling, not the anger that kept trying to creep back in. I could deal with that later. Right now, I wanted to marvel in the fact that the most wonderful woman in the world had given me the most precious gift I would ever receive—and she’d done it all on her own.
Laurel… Wow. What she must have gone through and dealt with day in and day out at such a young age, I couldn’t even imagine. Add to that the pain of losing her mother and the burden of Harry’s fucked-up deal, and I had no idea how she’d survived.
But she had. In fact, she’d thrived. She’d carved out a highly successful career for herself, made a beautiful home for her family to grow up in, and raised a young man that everyone sang the praises of.
I’d been wrong earlier in thinking the girl I’d known was gone, because she was the foundation of the exquisite woman who now stood in her place.
I hit Laurel’s number and waited for it to connect, and the second her voice came through the phone, my chest tightened and a smile crossed my lips.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Laurel.”
“Noah.”
My name in her voice was like music to my ears, and I almost asked her to say it again just so I could feel the warm rush it sent through me.
“Hey.”
She chuckled softly. “I believe we already covered that.”
“So we did.”
She paused, and I imagined her standing at one of those large windows of that house, staring out at the trees in her yard.
“How did it go? Are you okay?”
It was a testament to the kind of woman Laurel was that she was concerned for my feelings after all that my family had put her through. But here she was, worrying, caring, offering more compassion than she should to the son of a man who had made her life a living hell.
“It went…as expected. You were right. Mom had no idea. She’s pretty upset about it. Ryan? I think he knew all along and is dealing with that. Justin and Bree I have no clue, and honestly, I’m too busy trying to process my own feelings to worry about theirs. They’re going to have to deal with this on their own, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t hold their hands through it. I’m too damn angry.”
“I can understand that.”
I was sure she could. She must hate my family for what they’d done. How she worked with them day in and day out was beyond me.
“But Noah?”
“Hmm?”
“Keep an open mind with them. They didn’t know. Just like you. And I’m sure they’re feeling very angry and betrayed. Upset at me—”
“Why the hell would they be upset with you?”
“I lied to them for years.”
“No,” I said. “You were blackmailed for years. That’s a big difference, Laurel. You have nothing to be sorry for. And if they try to say otherwise, you come and see me.”
She went quiet, and I knew her well enough to know that she was probably wondering if she’d done the right thing back then. If maybe she could’ve done something different.
But there was no changing the past, just learning to deal with it, and right now I wanted to do something I’d never done before.
“Hey, Laurel?”
“Yes?”
“Jake—he’s on the baseball team in high school, isn’t he?”